foundation of Alexandria, situated at the
mouth of the westernmost (Canopic or Heracleotic) branch of the Nile, on
the western bank. The channel, which entered the Mediterranean at the
western end of the Bay of Aboukir, is entirely silted up, but on the
shore at Aboukir there are extensive traces of the city with its quays,
&c. Excavation has disclosed granite monuments with the name of Rameses
II., but they may have been brought at a late period for the adornment
of the place. It is not certain that Canopus was an old Egyptian town,
but it appears in Herodotus as an ancient port. In the 9th year of
Ptolemy Euergetes (239 B.C.) a great assembly of priests at Canopus
passed an honorific degree, _inter alia_, conferring the title [Greek:
Euergetaes] "Benefactor" on the king. Two examples of this decree are
known, inscribed in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. From it we learn
that the native form of the name of Canopus was Karob. A temple of
Osiris was built by Euergetes, but very near to Canopus was an older
shrine, a temple of Heracles mentioned by Herodotus as an asylum for
fugitive slaves. The decree shows that Heracles here stands for Ammon.
Osiris was worshipped at Canopus under a peculiar form, a vase with a
human head, and was identified with Canopus, the pilot of Menelaus, who
was said to have been buried here: the name canopic has been applied,
through an old misunderstanding, to the vases with human and animal
heads in which the internal organs were placed by the Egyptians after
embalming. In the Roman epoch the town was notorious for its
dissoluteness. Aboukir means "father Cyrus," referring to a Coptic saint
of that name. (F. Ll. G.)

CANOPY (through Fr. _canape_, from Med. Lat. _canapeum_, classical
_conopeum_, a mosquito curtain, Gr. [Greek: konops], a gnat), the upper
part or cover of a niche, or the projecting ornament over an altar or
scat or tomb. Early English canopies are generally simple, with
trefoiled or cinquefoiled heads; but in the later styles they are very
rich, and divided into compartments with pendants, knots, pinnacles, &c.
The triangular arrangement over an Early English and Decorated doorway
is often called a canopy. The triangular canopies in the north of Italy
are peculiar. Those in England are generally part of the arrangement of
the arch mouldings of the door, and form, as it were, the hood-moulds to
them, as at York. The former are above and independent of the door
moulding